I-Team Questions 2006 Campaign Expenditures

The WBAL TV 11 News I-Team is raising new questions about the campaign spending of former Maryland lieutenant governor and U.S. Senate candidate Michael Steele, as well as former Gov. Robert Ehrlich.

The FBI is currently investigating possible fraud because a former Steele campaign official claimed no work was performed for the payments made by the campaign to a company controlled by Steele's sister. Steele has denied the charge.

The questions the I-Team is raising center on more than $400,000 paid out from several Republican accounts in the closing weeks of the 2006 campaign.

During the campaign in which Ehrlich tried to hold on to his job as governor and as Steele tried to claim a U.S. Senate seat, both campaigns were spending big money.

According to campaign records, some of the biggest payments from their accounts went to the same firm -- a Prince George's County firm that went by the name Allied Berton, LLC.

The firm's Web site said it was in the business of trading commodities, such as minerals, metals, coffee and sugar. But the campaign payments it received, according to the candidates' accounting, were for a wide range of other activities, according to campaign filings.

Between Sept. 7, 2006, and Nov. 1, 2006, Ehrlich's campaign paid Allied Berton more than $229,000, which included expenses described as food and transportation, salaries, compensation and rent, I-Team lead investigative reporter Jayne Miller said.

The firm got one payment in the amount of more than $73,000 from the campaign account of Ehrlich's running mate, Kristen Cox. That expense was listed as media. A payment of $50,000 went to the firm from the state's Republican party. It listed the expense as vehicle rentals and volunteers, Miller reported.

Steele's Senate campaign made four payments to Allied Berton in October and November 2006 totaling more than $64,000. Each of those expenses was listed as political consulting, according to campaign filings.

"I would make of this being a little hinky," said Professor Don Norris, the director of the Institute for Policy Analysis at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

"The firm doesn't have anything to do with political consulting or providing services to elected officials or campaigns, and what we can't tell by looking at what was reported is what the expenditures were really for," Norris said.

At the time the campaigns made the payments, Allied Berton's right to conduct business had been forfeited by the state for failing to file the proper paperwork, Miller reported. That was in 2005 -- a full year before the campaign payments were made.

"When a candidate for office or a political party or a campaign organization spends money to an aggregate that technically doesn't exist, it raises all kinds of questions. What was the money spent for? Who did it go to?" Norris said.

The man behind Allied Berton is Sandy Roberts. Miller reported he does have political connections. In 2004, he organized a big party for Steele in New York during the Republican National Convention.

Earlier that same year, Roberts got approval from the Ehrlich administration to expand a different business needed to set up shop as a minority business enterprise at the airport.

Roberts is co-owner of Olympic News, which has several outlets at BWI Airport. News stands are regarded as one of an airport's most lucrative businesses, Miller reported.

Miller said that Roberts told the I-Team through a lawyer that he was unaware Allied Berton's standing with the state had been forfeited until the I-Team asked about it. He has not answered what the payments from the campaigns were.

A spokesman for Steele said his 2006 Senate campaign complied with all Federal Election Commission regulations. The spokesman would answer no other questions.

On Thursday, a spokesman for Ehrlich's campaign told the I-Team that the payments to Allied Berton were for "garden variety" campaign activities.

The spokesman said the money might have been used to pay for six busloads of poll workers on Election Day in 2006. The buses carried several hundred black men from Philadelphia -- many of whom were homeless -- as part of a strategy to attract black support that was denounced at the time by Democrats as deceptive.